Questions about the goblins.

[Buzzu]

Hy everybody. I'm back again in need of some clarifications about the swampyes.

As stated in another thread (but this is the right place to ask) I was wondering how the hunting spiders should be deployed. I need a novice shaman or a webmaster leader. They are part of the warband? They act as individuals but I need the spiders to be placed close? They are in their proper warband and the spiders have to be deployed close? A spider has mov 5, a novice shaman mov 3. How can I use the spiders good if they have to wait for the shaman to follow them saying: "Wait, not so fast my pets!"

Another question is about the spells "Seed of the poison yukka" and "Hornet's nest". It's written in the rules that you have to act as any other direct template weapon in targeting purposes. Ok. But the question comes before this. I have to use the RC stat to see if I hit where I want to hit. The spell has a difficult level. Do I have to subtract this level from the RC stat? Do I have to cast the spell with the difficult level applied to the PW stat AND throw it using the RC stat? This could be a very difficult procedure to reach success.
Better a novice with a blowpipe for 35 points, instead of 85 points of shaman plus 10 or 30 for the spells to make two different dice shots I can't even buffer, since the shaman cannot concentrate nor aim!

Please, tell me how it works. After longtime I'm getting ready to play my swamp army and I have to know every detail to play them correctly.

Thanks for your help.

[dane]

I will give this a shot, and if a higher power wants to errata, I will bow to that wisdom.

I use Warhounds and Warhawks, I have always understood that they are placed in coherency with the Warband leader, then activate on their own afterwords as a separate unit (or individuals).
Simplified: Place close, activate separate after deployment.

Spells: Apply the power lvl to the spell and if it succeeds (if it fails, end action), then roll against the RC stat unmodified.
Simplified: Spell as normal, RC is just to see once it is activated that the unit has the skill to put it where it belongs.

[Buzzu]

Thanks for your answers, Dane, but I still need some clarification. A novice shaman is NOT an individual. It is added to a warband as a member of. I'd be very happy to activate him alone casting gourd bombs everywhere, but I'm not sure it works like this.

About the spell, if it works like this I see very few chances to place it where it should. A novice shaman with a gourd bomb is more cheap and requires only a dice shot instead of two. Even if I still haven't understood how many action are needed to shot a gourd bomb. A blowpipe has a ROF of 1/2, so if I shot I can do nothing else that turn. Which is the ROF of a gourd bomb?

By the way, I playtested a goblin combo of 997 points against a dwarf wolf clan of 997, yesterday, and the goblins erased the clan, the most effect given by the blowpipers who killed a warband of four desert wolf warriors in two rounds, and a gourd bomb which killed three of five members, including the leader, of a warband of axe warriors before they could get in melee. Using the units, new questions arose. The mantis guard champion is a very powerful hero, I gave the coup de grace to the totem with no problems, helped by the fact that a totem has D 4, this allowed me to place an incredible number of goblins around him, and with the pole weapons you don't have to be in contact but you can hit staying behind your friend. The champion has group attack. Now the question: which is the group I have to consider him to be with? Every allied piece gives him a bonus of +2 to CC and DAM instead of the +1? This would be very cool. Do I have to specify a warband he's linked? Does it works only with members of a mantis guard unit?

Last but not least, I still have to playtest my swamp fiend. In it's profile is stated that it can pass above obstacles up to 2 inches with no problem. Can I use this to pass over enemy troops if they're not on wait? It's not a trample, I simply pass over them...

[Buzzu]

This forum is usually crowded, but except for Bane seems nobody else does matter my matters! Groan!  

Anyway, I come with more and more questions, I wanna be an expert user of my armies.
And here I come: undeads and template effects. Does the hornet's nest and the seed of the poison yukka affects them? And what about powder pipe and gourd bombs?

I used common sense till now, and I thought that hornet's nest is an insect attack, if you're an undead it can give you no problem at all, especially if neither an arrow does.
It's a little different for the poison yukka and the blowpipe and bombs. It's a corrosive attack. An explosive one for the bombs. And it's entity is not low. So I think it should affect them, corroding and melting the flesh, no care if alive or already died.

Can anybody help?

Another question... drone warriors are considered missile weapon warband??? This is ridiculous! They have a range of 15! If they're flying to height band two they're already at mid-distance for an enemy right below them... and, considering the point cost, how much people should I field down to allow a full WB to be deployed? They can find a place in a 945 A.P. army, but only if I don't play blowpipers!

[joshuaslater]

I'll see what I can do for all of these.  They are good questions.  I'll have answers over Talamania after the weekend of the 18th of this month.

[dane]

Just went over the rules again to clear anything I might have been making and assumption over.

SPIDERS:
The Warhounds special rule is that a Hunter must be bought to field the Warhounds, They start within command distance of the Hunter, but when activated become a leaderless Warband. In the case of the spiders, they would become individuals after deployment and activation. This is probably a solid call, It is used for cases of domesticated war creatures and the unit that controls them in all the years I've played.

SPELLS:
Both the spells require a PW check subtract the LVL of the spell from the PW of the unit (in both cases -1)

Both spells then require a RC check using the deviation rules for template weapons. 10" range (Pg97 in rule book)

The spell and the RC are all one action, so you can cast the spell the spell as many times as you have actions.

You are correct that there are fewer rolls to succeed at to use the gourd bomb. but the range of the gourd bomb at CR is almost half of the range of the spell (which is 10" the spell gives a few more inches because it does not declare a CR value in combination with your ST, so it is assumed all close range).

Your Novice Shaman will hit (RC10) 50% of the time at 5" (CR=2=ST3)

Your Shaman will Cast at 55% and then throw at 60% to 10". This does increase the miss chance by requiring two rolls, but you could do it twice in a round. The templates even if they deviate stay in play, which might be used to advantage.

Your points are valid, and PTs values and potentials are not my greatest strength, but I was just hoping I might be of help to clarify. I had a lunch at my desk.

As to effecting Undeads, unless the descriptive includes "living targets" as a prerequisite I have always had the assumption that there are explosive or corrosive effects. The immune to Hand held missile weapons would effect anything listed as handheld missile weapon list, I do not think it would apply to every item that uses RC. Magic and High Alchemy have more punch then just a grenade style bomb, dart or arrow.

Again. As Joshua has stated he will be able to get a nice call at talamania in a few weeks. This is all just my humble input.

Besides Chronopia has always been very close to my heart, so I love to help.

William

[Buzzu]

Thanks a lot, William. I appreciate any "humble point of view"  because it's a player's experience, and it can always suggest something interesting.

I just come to discuss the points as follow:

The question about the spiders is not that they can or cannot act as an independent warband. They have all the requisites to do this. My doubts are about the webmaster leader or the novice shaman, who are not individuals but part of a warband. I'm waiting for an official clarification, saying by the way that I tried to put some combo of a deployement with novice shamans and spiders beside others and they could really work good...

About your comparison between the higher values of the shaman, I have to say that it's not so true. A shaman has RC and PW 12, but he can't aim nor concentrate because he has to control his drone. A novice shaman has RC 10, but he can aim, exactly as an alchemist can when throwing his bombs, as stated in the faqs by Thom. So he can shoot at Rc 12, even if he doesn't increase the damage of the bomb. regarding the distance, here I go with another angry consideration. A shaman is on a flying drone. The advantage is that he always has los. The disadvantage is that he has to calculate the vertical distance and the horizontal one, so, even when he's only at height band 1, he has to subtract 3 inches from the point he is, and the effective range of the spell will be 7 inches, which, against the five of a gourd bomb, is not so much more. If he's flyng at height band 2, to avoid attacks from below, he only has 4 inches. Anyway, there are situations in which it could be worth to be deployed anyway, such as against an army of stygians, where the shooters are very poor, sending bombs down with very few matters, except the case of an ophidian, but if you shield him with a warband of drone warriors, this could be winning without effort. 

And now...

To all the goblins lovers, I just let you a very nice consideration I've made about the difficulty to evaluate the right unit cost of a piece. There are a LOT of things to consider. I always wondered about the cost of a goblin spearman, which is 15, and a militiaman of the elves. He costs 13. What??? I always complained about it, and I couldn't understand why. The elf has got a point more in CC, in Armor and in damage. He has got a pole weapon too. But he's cheaper of two points. Then, I remembered something very important. I was trying to find a way to protect from enemy arrows, and I found that a militiaman can do nothing at all about it. He takes the arrow. A goblin pikemen, instead, has something very cool. He's small. An he got a shield. This means a total of -2 to enemy RC. Moreover, a warband can have a standard bearer and a drummer. A drum will give me +1 to cc and ST, bringing me to the same values of a militiaman, and the standard can give me a -2 to RC, bringing it to a total of -4! This means a -4 in short distance, a -8 in mid distance and a -12 in long distance. Most units can only hope in a perfect, but, as stated in the main book, if the modified RC goes to 3 or less, a perfect is not an automatic kill but requires an armor roll. Mix it with a shaman pushing a fleetness (for 5 points is a frightening spell!) when you get close to the archers and you'll get a run of 12 inches! HAW HAW, I wanna try it against the blackbloods now!

Cheers to you all and forgive my lenght, I just wanted to give a nice suggestion to goblin players...

[dane]

Its all good. Good points. Maybe we'll get to test the percentages out a con someday, that is always enjoyable.

Good luck on the finals calls!

be Well

[joshuaslater]

We talked about the Spiders at Talamania.  When you deploy the spiders with the webmaster/novice shaman, they start out in command distance as if the goblin was the leader.  When they activate, the spiders will outpace their handler, and go after the enemy.  The goblin will still activate on their card and not separately in the game turn.

That's the ruling for now from Thom.

[Buzzu]

Thanks Josh. You're always ready to give an answer, I appreciate it a lot. I will use the spiders as stated. It's very cool and already led me to build some new army settings.

I come back with the other questions: I think I will not pass over enemy units with my swamp fiend. A unit who leaps can do it, but it's difficult to hit a leaping enemy, while it would not be so if the enemy is enormous but it has walking legs to chop while passing.

I checked the rules about group attack. It says that you gain the bonus for every friendly unit, it's not like it was in the first edition, in which this ability belonged to the members of a same warband only. This is very cool...

I also looked to some FAQ about the alchemist of the blackblood and I assumed that a novice shaman should work in the same way. So the ROF of a gourd bomb should be 1/1, and it's possible to aim or concentrate. In this case, to aim, since it's specified the shaman uses his RC stat to throw.

What I'm still wondering about are the two last points: do the gourd bombs, powder pipe, hornet's nest and seed of the poison yukka affect undead foes?
and last but not least: Are the drone riders really considered missile units? I suppose that, if they are, my beloved antriders should be considered too. But I reply: the range is SO SHORT!

Any answer is welcome.

[joshuaslater]

Drone riders are missile units.  Even with the short range of blowpipes, they make up for that with speed and avoiding close combat (flying!).

[Buzzu]

Hmm. At a height level 1 the range is reduced of 3 inches vertically. This means short range is 2 inches. Medium is 7. Long is 12. Ridicolous. 

Anyway, since I am the creator of the antriders, I state that antriders are NOT a missile unit warband. 
They cannot fly, so they can be reached easily.